


The Secret Garden

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 21:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: After having fought so strenuously, there was nothing better than sit and watch the result of your victory.And Andromeda had fought for so long.





	The Secret Garden

After having fought so strenuously, there was nothing better than sit and watch the result of your victory.  
And Andromeda had fought for so long.  
Sitting in their own garden, in front of their own house, to watch their own daughter play, was something worth fighting for.  
“Mommy! Mommy, I’m flying!” the child screamed, happy. Andromeda smiled.  
Ted was holding her tightly on the broomstick, at less than a foot from the ground. And yet she was amazed, with that astonishment that’s so typical of kids, for whom the world is an incessant discovery.  
Instinctively, she stood up and got closer to them; she hugged her daughter, kissing her on the forehead.  
“I love you, my child.” she whispered, her eyes wet.  
Dora looked at her, her eyes wide, confused.  
“I love you too, mommy. But you’ll make me fall.” she complained.  
Andromeda laughed, backing off as much as she needed to keep ‘flying’. Ted looked at her, understanding, knowing exactly what his wife was feeling at that right moment.  
Family was all Andromeda had, the consolation for what she was forced to abandon.  
She stared long at her daughter’s smile, her hair of a blinding pink and the look on her face alive.  
That image gave her all the peace she was denied in the past, and it just couldn’t be a consolation prize.  
Dora, Ted, that garden and that house... they were the only prize, and she wasn’t even sure she deserved it.

~

The same place, the same garden, where flowers had long since withered.  
Lifeless things had the wonderful gift of staying always the same.  
They could consume, they could fall by the hand of neglect, but their essence always stayed the same.  
Andromeda would’ve liked for it to be the same for people.  
She sat on that chair that, exactly twenty years before, had been witness to pure joy.  
She had seen that joy slip away, becoming routine, than problems, than desolation.  
She felt a light yet invasive pair of hands resting on her shoulders. She turned, seeing her daughter leaning onto her, kissing her cheek.  
“What are you thinking about, mom?” she asked, curious as usual. Andromeda took one of her hands in between hers, and looked at the garden.  
“Can you remember the first time you flew?” she asked, whispering. Tonks blushed, and laughed.  
“Of course I can. I also remember how I fell right after, and how after that I only rode a broomstick when necessary.” she answered, kneeling and resting her chin on her mother’s shoulder.  
They both stayed still, looking at that spot that seemed to be so far, like it was the inviolate chest of memories they didn’t wanna touch.  
“I remember that dad didn’t even worry I was hurt, and he laughed. You ran toward me, and got mad at him because he wasn’t taking it seriously.” she went on, her voice broken.  
Andromeda closed her eyes, and recalled once again that image in her mind.  
“I remember. Your father was used to falls and accidents, that’s why he wasn’t worried.” she clenched her lips, as to want to put a stop to words that, instead, flowed free and sharp. “I worried over any little thing. Everytime you hurt yourself, cried, fell. Because I had an irrational fear that the happiness we had could’ve disappeared. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but my heart told me that everything is destined to end, that it only takes one moment and things get lost, they transform.” she sighed “Also, it wasn’t easy learning to live with your total lack of balance.” she said in the end, trying to lighten up the conversation.  
Her daughter moved, sitting down in front of her in order to watch her in the eyes.  
Her face still had those lively eyes she had as a child, but the frame looked somehow older. The hair hadn’t had that sharp colour in days, they were like faded in time, in what had happened, in the pain that, Andromeda knew it, she was feeling, even though she was trying her best to hide it.  
They were so damn similar.  
They tried to protect each other from a reality they couldn’t ignore, hoping that by never mentioning what had come to pass and what was going to happen they could’ve pretended that time had stopped flowing.  
Andromeda saw on her daughter’s face the same confusion she felt when, as a child, she failed to understand something, when she used the ordinary sentence “when you’ll grow, you’ll understand”.  
Now her Nymphadora had grown, but there were still a few things she couldn’t understand.  
Or maybe, she thought, she pretended not to understand, because she still wanted to hear her mother’s voice explaining the world to her, telling her that the conclusions she had reached were wrong.  
And Andromeda, unable to lie to her, kept quiet.  
An oppressing, unnatural silence, that kind of silence that had never been a part of Dora’s world.  
“Mom...” the girl whispered, staring at her mother’s look. Andromeda raised her head and stared back, sharp. She stared at her daughter’s face, burning it in her mind to always bring her with herself when she would’ve been afar, when she could have done nothing to save her.  
“I love you, my child.” she said, with those words tasting of an ancient feeling, the only thing left untouched by time.  
And Dora didn’t answer, because she was too much of an adult to be ashamed for her mother’s love, and yet too much of a child to express the one she felt.  
They stayed there, watching at that spot, in that garden, when they had been so happy, all three of them.  
A happiness that today was maimed, but that lived on in their memories.  
They were no longer confused.  
They knew what they had lost and what they still had.  
The same blood running unperturbed in their veins, and the certainty that, even though they wouldn’t have always been able to protect each other from the world, they still had that little place of happy moments, which only belonged to them.


End file.
